building the robot

the pieces come like rain.
bolts & blades. tubes & oil. 
instructions in the mailbox. they read,
"build the robot." i avoid the work. instead,
i mow the lawn. i decapitated the 
thorn weeds. i pray like i used to with
my eyes beneath the soil.
finally though the robot cannot be
avoided anymore. he throbs like a sick limb
beneath the surface of my flesh.
there are billboards that announce 
his omnipresence. "love the robot." "we are
the robot." i have simple time
dreams of searching the forest desperately
for huckleberries. their deep purple stains
beneath my fingernails. the robot
was not inevitable. in fact, i read
a newspaper story that the robot was funded
by a hand without a body. that it milks
our tongues. an endless machine. 
i cease to sleep. i build the robot. i do not
want the robot but here it is. it makes
all the promises i do not want it to make.
it says, "we are gods." my eyes well up.
the birds scatter into the dark hills. they are
furious with me. we used to speak when i
was a child. did i forget their language 
or did they stop trying to converse with me?
soon it is only the robot. i plug it in
where the television used to live. it says,
"all you need is a past." i do not want to share 
anything with it. i feed my memories 
to a turtle in a mountain pond. i look
over my shoulder the whole time. 
the turtle asks, "what are you so afraid of?"
i lower my voice to as soft a whisper as i can
& reply, "i am afraid of my hands." 
the turtle devours them for me. a favor. 
each finger, one by one. then each limb
until i am just a shaking grain. still, the robot
finds me. squeezes my face until i am
a pop of energy, then the relief of dust. 

panic room

o blender moon i have a blade for us.
with the syrup in a bottle of legs.
i sometimes try to run from my face.
there are monkeys on the side of the road
preparing for a new evolution where 
they too have video games. i lock the doors.
i lock the windows. i buy as much as i can
online. lots of notebooks & even
a box of turkish delight so that my sugar
will be blooming & lovely. the knives 
in my house are dull. the ceiling is rusted
& inhabited by the ghosts of bats. 
i enjoy having a nice panic in the afternoon
when there is really nothing else to do
with a pair of wings. i dislike when people
day "the apocalypse" as if there is only
one way all of this goes down. instead, i 
prefer quick words like "this danger"
& "this heat." in my favorite panic room
i have a picture of all of us before i knew
exactly how evil things could get. in the picture
i have worn out our eyes by looking at us.
a mirror breaks itself. in the panic room
there is only one telephone. you cannot dial it.
whatever comes is what comes. sometimes 
it is my father. often it is my lover asking,
"where are you, i have searched every ocean?"
i beg for him to join me. to panic with me
in a place where we don't have to be real,
we can just be mania. when i return i try
my best to follow in my family tradition
of pretending nothing at all happened. smile.
open the windows over night so that tall men
have somewhere to sleep. moonless night.
a playground arriving from no where.
i know what a trap is when i see it. i swallow 
the key. catch us inside & crawl into 
a pillow case that smells tree sap & hair. 

hazel rod

i have become a disciple of protection spells.
i plant a deer tooth at the edge of the yard 
where the world ends. the cattle come only
when there's fog. i hear their hooves on the roof
& i run outside to let them graze on my hair.
tragedy makes me more superstitious.
it starts with the money spells & spills into
everything else. i only cut my hair when 
the moon is full. a hazel tree grows in the closet
& i share it with no one. protection that is greedy
is not really protection. i tell myself i have 
to invite the whole street. i have to open my door
& not just talk to cows. i need to bring people
to the tree. make offerings. ask for branches.
then maybe we could all walk around with
our hazel rods. the only trouble is hazel branches can
also lead to invisibility so i'm told. i imagine 
walking around without the weight of being
seen. but i want to see the neighbor with
her barefoot rooms & her long hair. i want to see
the children chasing geese. i visit the tree.
it grows in wild cork screws. i feed it beef jerky.
a little betrayal to the cows. it is the hazel tree's
favorite though. i feel often caught between 
the world & my body. i guess that is what it means
to be living. when i finally take a branch 
from the tree i think the first thing i'm going
to do is walk out into the middle of the corn field.
i want to see if the coyotes can smell me. i want
to see if the cows follow. if, on all fours, i am
something other than a fearful animal
though i already know i am not. 

accidental narnia in the mouse closet

when everyone else had moved out
i learned to talk to the mice. i crouched 
& put my ear to the closet door. sometimes
the sirens outside were so loud that 
they intruded on our communion.
other nights we spoke. the mice told me
there was a place deep inside the closet
where everything was made of sugar. 
i watched the same nature documentary show
five times. turned it up loud to soak the walls
in a jungle. the mice became bolder in those
final weeks. i did not want to fight them.
one night we had dinner together on the floor.
i showed them pictures of us when we had 
been happy. when the ocean beat her wings 
across our backs. i drove while you read poetry.
the mice asked me, "are you going to join us?"
they wanted me to climb into the closet too.
to see the world they had told me so much about.
i hesitated. everything felt too late. too late
to be a man. too late to be a girl. nothing left
but bones & doorways. i applied for jobs.
i wept in the stairwell. the mice reminded me,
"there is so much sugar." i regret not taking
them up on their offer. the walls have changed
so much. folded & opened. i don't call you
like i used to. someone else lives in that apartment
& they do not talk to the mice. not like i did.
once in awhile i will go into my closet here
when no one else is home. i will press my ear
to the wall. no sirens. no mice either but 
the sweet sound of a door without a hinge. 
i know on the other side my mouse kin are there
eating themselves into light. 

at home test

i eat the door & then there is no such thing
as disease. from the online place a little
box comes with all the words i need to hear.
i test for mirrors in my blood. i do the tests
over & over until one comes up negative.
thank you gods for the sliver of truth in
a worm farm. when i was little we used to go
to the fields behind our house for meal worms.
not the smooth worms of our dreams but
the anklet ones with tiny crunching faces.
we used them as bait to fish for lungs. 
i drove the car even though
my feet could barely reach the pedals. a bicycle
lodged in the ceiling. a doorless house. 
we used foil to try to keep the lid on all
this breath. i am a fiend for reassurance.
someone tell me, "yes we are all going to survive."
i wake you up in the middle of a plum.
dark purple skin of the stars. you say,
"go back to sleep." i beg, "tell me i am alive.
tell me i am not sick." of course i am. in new ways
every time the sun unpeels & buries her left foot.
you are not a liar so you don't agree 
to lie. instead, you buy a pocket doctor.
his instructions say, "put him in a glass
of water for a diagnosis." i do that & wait.
he says, "you are a deviant." i sigh. i could have
saved some waiting. i already knew that part
but what else? there are not enough sand boxes
for adults. the ocean spits out a child every
full moon. that was me. my skin still 
aching without a trench. let's not get carried away.
there are rocks that bleed. there is no way out.
when i am really desperate i want to call my mom.
i don't do that though. i think that balloon
is on another planet. instead, i put my ear
to a tree. hear the water trekking up her throat. 
sometimes, when no one else is around
she will give me what i need. she'll lie to me.
she'll say, "you are cured forever now" &
for that i'll thank her by pressing a penny
into the rain-soft earth then find it weeks later
when all its shine is used up 
sitting on my forehead in the middle of the night. 

over over

i want to turn my skin off sometimes
& just be a layer of sediment. let the rain
thin me to an earth veil. i have a hard time
writing about being autistic because it's like
describing the color of dusk. sure orange
but blue too & purple & yellow &
a bruise the size of every disappointment.
i am not curious what it would be like
to not be autistic. actually it terrifies me.
is there less sound? less skin? does the sky 
still sometimes strike like a hammer 
in the dark? do you listen to the flies
saying their goodnight prayers? worry about
the texture of grass on a day when everyone
wants you to be happy? every answer i have
ever sought is a bird. when i was small i had
a phase with my sibling of trying to catch a bird.
our father had told us, "if you catch it,
you can keep it." we did not have plans
for how we would care for a dove or a catbird.
still we chased them. got close once or twice.
this is what being autistic feels like in a room
of people who have too many teeth & tongues.
if i could turn off my skin though maybe
i would have some rest. maybe i would close 
my eyes & turn into syrup. thick & sweet.
so often i want to stop spilling over. over roofs
over lips over knees. my words, like ants 
fleeing for safety in the wake of a hill's destruction
flowing over a threshold. i know i am too much
for a lot of windows. screw those windows.
this is my huge giant flower face. this is my
handful of hair. this is my rocket collection.
when i reach the moon i am going to put
my ear to the surface & listen. see if i can catch
the rocks breathing like i know they do. to me
it is a gift to over the over. my body, ringing.
i will never be any smaller. i take my skin off.
terrify the sky. all the birds underneath.
nothing to catch. thousands of beaks right here. 

meltdown

i don't want a face anymore.
i think it would be easier if i just
walked around with a little sign
that read "please talk to me."
i ask you what you see in the clouds 
& you respond, "what clouds?"
often i am the only one in a room
thinking about teeth. what a shame
we could all be loudly aware of our
potential for soil enrichment.
the geese have decided not to return
to wherever they came from. that is fair.
i am also a creature of dislocation. 
my knees slide out of their sockets sometimes.
i take that as a blessing. look at me & look
at how i live like pasta becoming 
a meal. i don't have good control
of my emotions. i put them in jars.
i feed them to my hypothetical children.
i put them in envelopes & send them 
to people who i wanted to be friends with.
lately i have been less interested 
in putting myself back together. 
i let the pieces develop their own lives.
there is the angry little ghost & the wild
bilingual parrot & the goat eyes &
even the pilot without a clue how
to get home. i look forward to all 
the fragments yet to come. i open
mirrors like cans of peas. see my mosaic.
i drive all night trying to reach a lover
whose name i forget. how could i 
forget their name? all i remember is that
he lives in a house without any lights.
in the cupboard with the water glassed eggs
i find a piece i did not think i had anymore.
this is the joy of being a collage creature.
there i am & there i go. 

the alphabet backwards 

i find a car in the field. all the dogs
are barking at the sun. sometimes i pass
my elementary school. they cut down
the tree i used to climb. her limbs 
now live just segments of an earth worm.
i try to climb them. always end up falling.
tonight it is going to freeze again. it is 
too late to be freezing. all the plants
explain to me, "we are not going
to remember how to sugar." once a teacher
made us recite the alphabet backwards.
the only other time i have had to do this
was when i got in a car accident. 
my head rung like a bell. the officer asked
if i had been singing. no he meant
drinking. of course i officer i was
just swallowing as much cloud as i could.
most of my life feels like that. the discomfort 
of trying to recall what comes next. 
some people walk around abc abc abc 
& i guess that works well for them. i lose 
my way. i add another vowel. the long o
that rolls down the throat like a bald tire.
i don't think i said the order right 
to the cop. he wrote in his little
death note & drove away. all the crushed parts
of the car were on the side of the road.
it is amazing how quickly mistakes can be
hidden. the car towed into the field. 
the dogs once not my dogs became 
my dogs. when my lover isn't home
i bark with the dogs. anyone who doesn't think
dogs have language has never tried
kneeling down with them. their hot breath.
their alphabet, multi-directional. no forwards
or backwards. i think i was
meant to be a tooth if not a whole 
creature. i cannot help it. i start with "z."
the tree comes apart. the creek rises. 
the worms divide, start each their own
shiny little lives. 

frozen lake geese after the snow

i sell my eyelids for marigolds.
summer is going to have fish this year.
we caught a dream animal & let it go.
the heat coming with webbed feet.
the farmer digs a hole to drain the lake. 
in winter it had frozen & i would
almost every day, wake up beneath
the surface. a television girl for the geese
who walked toward their body compass.
when it snowed the mornings were
blaring & white. i didn't need my lungs
so i used them to carry feathers toward
an oven glow. they didn't accept fire
like hair. crumbled love poem.
the lake, a taunt drum. the geese asked me
through the glass, "do you know 
we are going to have an april again?"
i treated their promises like disbatches
from a holy ship. i replied, "no i did not."
sitting in the show as a little boy,
i worried horribly about the future super nova. 
if there would still be birds once we
were all turned into light. the geese are 
confused about the drained lake just as
i am. i no longer wake up there. the sun
has to drink from puddles on the road.
the path between the fields is too overgrown
to traverse anymore. still, i see the deer.
their eyes, lakes. i ask them from a distance.
"would you let me wake up in your dark water?"
they never respond. i understand some 
intimacies are not for me. still, i crave
that quiet beneath the ice when the geese above
appeared like idols. they once told me 
a story of lovers who could only meet 
during a blizzard. i never got the ending
so i fill it with swords. so i fill it with
eyes. when it rains, the lake returns briefly.

pangea nostalgia or a hollow bone

we could have walked to meet where
the land holds the land. there is a map 
i follow when the ocean is too big. 
that greek myth about humans originally
having four arms & four legs is partially true
though it is not about soulmates. it is about
tectonic plates. it was a mistake to stand.
i find myself craving primordial. to chart 
a path across species. wake up in the twilight dawn
of a thick-shelled egg. the sun, like a father's eye
burning through the walls of any house. 
we wake with hollow bones. finally light
enough to run. i chase you until we reach
an edge. sometimes i find a corner of the world
that is still reaching. i am reaching too. 
i used to dig holes as a child. i told my mother,
"i am trying to find the core." a molten heart
to cling onto. instead, i found square nails
& once a coin with my own face on it. 
dinosaur bones missing the legs. my legs. here
we are without a map. thank god. i love to go
off intuition. stumble down a street in
the blue city where we are visitors. i used to 
believe the sky was the ocean on her black.
we still run from teeth. i ask my gps for 
driving directions into prehistory. it tells me
how to cut a pair of gills. fasten wings
from the dirt. i do as it says. i meet you where
the land is just the land. language, sleeping.
sensation filling us. the sun, cracking us open.
yolk & then the rain.